Early ADP Deep Cuts: Tua Tagovailoa Is Buried In The Rankings, But His Upside Is Still Sky High

Tua Tagovailoa has been on quite the career roller coaster for a player who only has one year in the NFL. Tua was once a player multiple teams purposely put themselves in position to lose games so they could draft. He was a player who walked onto the field in the middle of a National Championship game and won a title for arguably college football’s most storied program. And he’s a player who has worked his way back from a hip injury that some initially feared could be career-ending. He’s also a player with a No. 190 overall ADP per Fantasy Pros, and who some Dolphins fans were already prepared to move on from.

It makes some sense. Tagovailoa started nine games for the Dolphins, and he supplanted popular veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick, who had the offense humming effectively. He finished the season with 11 touchdowns and five picks, a 64.1% completion rate, and had to be benched on multiple occasions. He did not resemble the electric Alabama version; he was barely mustering 180 yards per game through the air, and somehow put up fewer air yards per attempt (6.2) than yards per attempt (6.3). He ran a decent amount (3.6 attempts per game), but he only managed 109 yards and 10.9 rushing yards per game, saving the production with three rushing TDs. Simply put, there was nothing exciting about his rookie campaign beyond a Week 13 game vs. the Chiefs in which he put up 316 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 24 more yards and another score.

This is by no means a prediction of greatness in 2021 for Tua, but he does warrant a closer look as a deep breakout contender. First, the Dolphins have upgraded his weapons of war. They expended the sixth overall pick in this draft to bring in WR Jaylen Waddle, a championship teammate of Tua’s at ‘Bama. Waddle is arguably the biggest playmaker at the position in this draft, and he averaged 21.1 yards per reception last season as a junior. They also brought in Will Fuller, who had a breakout season for the Texans as their WR1 with DeAndre Hopkins shipped off to Arizona. Those two will join DeVante Parker, who had his own breakout in 2019, Preston Williams, and promising TE Mike Gesicki. The Titans, Buccaneers, Cowboys and Vikings are all rightfully getting a ton of spotlight on their stacked collections of skill players, but Miami quietly has a pretty impressive group. They also project to trot out a backfield led by Myles Gaskin, who is a solid pass-catcher, and is also not built for a 250-300 carry workload. They also poached C Matt Skura and G D.J. Fluker from the Ravens to bolster their subpar offensive line. This offense is going to rely on Tua if it’s going to work, and the Dolphins have ensure that if it doesn’t work out, they’ll have a definitive answer on this QB.

This offseason, Tua admitted something a bit alarming. He admitted he didn’t have an excellent grasp of the Miami playbook, which clearly would have an effect on the types of plays the coaching staff would feel comfortable having him run. It goes a long way toward explaining why the offense was so painfully conservative. With full command of the playbook, and an offseason in which he can actually participate fully, Tua should have a chance to do what he does best – air it out. At Alabama he averaged 13.4 air yards per attempt in his junior season, and never dipped lower than 9.9 in that regard. He was down to 6.3 AY/A last season.

Increased familiarity, combined with his new toys (Waddle, Fuller) may equal explosive plays that were nowhere to be found in 2020. The aspects of Tagovailoa’s game that made him special were all about his arm talent; just look at his NFL.com scouting report in 2019. He has “arm talent to make all the throws,” “throws short and intermediate with repeatable accuracy,” and makes “feathery soft bucket throws to the deep boundary.”

With the shackles off in terms of what plays they can run, Tua should be able to prove why he was once considered a lock to be the first overall pick. Some of us like to punt QB in the draft and scoop up a player or two at the end with some upside. Right now, Tua is sandwiched between Justin Fields and Taysom Hill, which means he’ll be free on draft day. It’s now or never for him, but we shouldn’t let 2020 mislead us about his ceiling.